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Finding a topic isn’t always easy

I sat down to write this column and I couldn’t settle on a subject. A lot of different ideas filled my congested head (thanks to the extreme temperatures of the world we live in where it’s 80 degrees one day and 43 the next, I caught a cold. I’ll raise my plastic Dayquil cup to toast to Mother Nature and global warming). I could write about self-improvement and personal development. I’ve started a new takeout-free diet and fared well the first week. Being a single guy, I’m not the best cook. I also realize that ordering out gets expensive and packs on the pounds as a nasty ...

The “Maine” Event

This is what my daughter-in-law, Katie, and I called our recent impromptu trip to Maine. I casually mentioned to her that I had a pressing desire to see Maine. A friend had planted the seed a few years ago, telling me that Maine was a must-see state, and his contagious enthusiasm for its beauty left an indelible impression on me. My desire to get there was then heightened last summer when it seemed as though every person I spoke with had either just gotten back from Maine or was on their way there. This turned my desire from “I would like to see it someday,” to “I must see it ...

Always remember Journalism 101

I graduated from college at the University of Maine more than 30 years ago, and I admit most of the sage advice my college professors gave me is collecting dust in a box in the corner of my basement. But there is a tidbit that one of them told me that I use each and every day when I sit down at my computer to write this and other stories. It was, “Don’t make yourself part of the story; you are just there to report it.” Of course, on this page, I am entitled to interject my opinions. But on the front page or the others, it would break his golden rule. His words also ring ...

Executive aggrandizement vs. women’s sports

By Rich Lowry King’s Features Syndicate Decades from now, when scholars are debating how the executive branch jumped the rails of any legislative accountability or rational rules, the new Biden administration Title IX edict should be the prime exhibit. It is a sweeping expansion of regulatory power, not in the service of the original goal of the underlying statue, but in opposition to it. This is brazen even for the Biden administration of the student loan forgiveness program and the rent moratorium. The new draft rule forbids blanket bans on transgender athletes competing in ...

Things that make you go hmmm

My fellow Generation Xers might remember the popular dance band with the hit, “Things That Make You Go Hmmm ….” The song’s well-known lyric plays in my head every now and then when I see something that makes me think, “Did that really just happen?” Like the trash-talkers at a sporting event where their team pulls off a big scoring play, and their fans flash the No. 1 sign. Huh? Do you see you’re still down 35 points in the fourth quarter … look at the scoreboard. If you’re driving along and someone pulls out and cuts you off. You slam on your brakes as they speed ...

I hope you dance — It’s National Dance Week!

The week of April 14 through April 23 has been designated as National Dance Week. This is a week set aside to celebrate the joy of dancing. Dancing is something that I love doing but am not necessarily very good at. Just picture Elaine from Seinfeld if you will or perhaps Wednesday Adams at the prom in the new Netflix series (Wednesday from the Adams Family). I am sure my children would concur. I have no doubt they were mortified at each of their weddings as they watched their mother on the dance floor moving about with reckless abandon. During the mother and son dances, however, ...